1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to networked computing systems, and more particularly to a generic infrastructure for converting documents between different formats with merge capabilities.
2. Description of the Related Art
Office productivity solutions typically include a suite of office applications hosted by one or more server systems and accessible by users to create, modify and save office application-specific documents on one or more servers. Typically, the users access the office productivity suite through devices such as other servers, desktops, workstations, and other at least moderately powerful devices that allow the office application-specific documents to be accessed in the same or similar format as that in which they are stored on the server(s). Documents are typically stored on the server, and transferred to the other devices so that they can be edited. The documents may then be synchronized back to the original document on the server. While office productivity systems typically are implemented as client/server systems, such systems may also be implemented in other environments such as single-machine environments and peer-to-peer systems.
Small devices may include, but are not limited to, handheld devices, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), cell phones (e.g. MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile) compliant cell phones), “smartphones,” etc. Manufacturers of exemplary small devices include, but are not limited to: Palm, Psion, Microsoft, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Sharp, Casio and Sony. Smartphones include, but are not limited to, the Nokia Communicator, the Handspring Treo and the Samsung Smartphone. Small devices are typically used for personal information manager (PIM) types of applications such as maintaining schedules, keeping names and phone numbers, simple calculations, taking notes, and, with a modem or other mechanism for accessing a network via a wired or wireless connection, exchanging e-mail and getting information from the Web. Typically, only small quantities of record-oriented data, such as Personal Information Manager (PIM) data, are synchronized between a stand-alone computer and small devices.
Typically, it is not possible to run a complete office application on small devices, due to limited resources such as memory, storage, processing capabilities, and limitations of the operating systems. Additionally, office productivity data is typically not record-oriented, whereas PIM data is record-oriented. Record boundaries make the data relatively easy to compare and merge during synchronization of the data between the server and the small device.